Our President and CEO, Paul Downey, presented to a room full of seniors at our Gary and Mary West Senior Wellness Center in San Diego, while the presentation was simultaneously broadcast to five other senior centers and communities across California. Attendees, in person and virtual, had lots of thoughtful questions and insights.

Webinar Topics Included:

Federal Poverty Level: what is it and how is it calculated?

California Elder Economic Security Index (Elder Index): what is it and how is it calculated?

What is advocacy?

Why should you be an advocate?

Types of advocacy

How to make your case

How to use statistics and facts to enhance your case

How to schedule a visit with an elected official, and what to cover during your visit

The mere mention of hepatitis A is enough to send most San Diegans running for the nearest sink or reaching for their hand sanitizer. It’s become almost a compulsion amid one of the worst outbreaks in San Diego’s history, and County health officials have declared a local public health emergency as hospitalization and death counts continue to rise.

What is Hepatitis A?

Hepatitis A is a highly contagious liver infection caused by the hepatitis A virus. With a long incubation period, this illness is especially worrisome – signs of infection don’t manifest for between two and seven weeks after exposure, and the virus is easily transferred via close contact with an infected person and consumption of contaminated food or drink.

The virus causes inflammation of the liver and affects its ability to function, resulting in intense flu-like symptoms and jaundice. People with healthy immune systems tend to recover with no permanent damage, but for individuals with compromised immune systems, as well as the young and the old, hepatitis A can be fatal.

Reducing Risk

We’re taking this outbreak seriously and are committed to protecting our seniors, staff and anyone else who enters our facilities. Through a partnership with the County of San Diego, we’ve already provided more than 400 vaccinations, free of charge, to both seniors and employees.

According to the Mayo Clinic’s website, “Practicing good hygiene, including washing hands frequently, is one of the best ways to protect against hepatitis A.” We’ve installed hand washing stations and hand sanitizer dispensers throughout the Gary and Mary West Senior Wellness Center, while we educate our seniors and employees about the disease and how to reduce their risk of contracting it.

An Ounce of Prevention…

The vaccine is an injection given in two parts, six months apart. We’re planning more vaccination events for the immediate future to administer more first-round shots. We’ll plan events for spring of 2018 to provide the second round of the vaccination. Following the second dose, immunity to hepatitis A lasts for 20 years or more.

If you have questions or would like more information about the measures Serving Seniors is taking to protect our seniors and staff, please email info@servingseniors.org. Information regarding future vaccination events will be shared on our website and social media platforms as we have it available.

Share your own encouragement of a “no” vote on your social media platform of choice using any of these hashtags: #savetheACA #ProtectOurCare #ACA #Obamacare #Trumpcare #MedicAid #MediCal #MediCare #VoteNo #Healthcare

Recent confusion around the Trump Administration’s proposed budget cuts has many Americans in a panic. The Administration issued some budget-related statements that lacked detail, causing misunderstandings nationwide.

Meals on Wheels, which is not a federal program, was specifically called out in budget director Mick Mulvaney’s March speech, where he stated, “We can’t spend money on programs just because they sound good and great, Meals on Wheels sounds great.” Lacking clarity, and delivered all in a single breath, the statement seemed to imply that while Meals on Wheels “sounds great,” it’s not worthy of continued federal funding. While Mulvaney later clarified, during a May speech, that Meals on Wheels and other senior nutrition programs would not be specifically targeted for budget cuts, it was too little too late. The panic had already taken hold.

Budget Cuts to Senior Nutrition Programs

Essentially, Trump’s proposed budget eliminates $3 billion from the Community Development Block Grant program, from which community-development and anti-poverty-focused organizations, like Serving Seniors, receive federal funding. If federal funding for the Community Development Block Grant program or the Department of Health and Human Services is reduced or eliminated, countless organizations will be affected, Serving Seniors included.

We provide nearly 600,000 meals to more than 800 seniors at 9 congregate locations every year. We deliver daily meals to more than 500 home-bound seniors on eleven routes across San Diego county. What will we tell those hungry seniors if we don’t receive the federal funding we need to continue feeding them?

The public demand for senior nutrition programs is most important than ever before. It’s increasingly clear that even “flat” federal funding isn’t good enough. Keeping our senior citizens healthy, independent and active by providing them with regular, nutritious meals is a small step in the right direction, and something that we can act upon now.

Why We Should Continue Funding Senior Nutrition Programs

In California alone 1,000 people turn 65 years old every day, and nearly half of them are reduced to living in poverty. By the year 2030, the United States will be home to 92 million seniors, meaning that a full 25% of the population will be aged 60 or older, with longer life expectancies than ever before. Quite simply, the infrastructure needed on national, state, county and city levels does not exist to support this.

Advocating for federal support that will keep our seniors healthy and fed is the reason Serving Seniors recently participated in the #SaveLunch campaign, along with National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs (NANASP) and Meals on Wheels America. We want to send a message to Members of Congress before the September 30 decision deadline, encouraging them to fund congregate and home-delivered meal programs at the levels required for their continued operation.

It makes good fiscal sense to fund congregate and home-delivered meal programs: it costs taxpayers less money to feed a senior for a year than it costs to treat that same senior for one day in a hospital or ten days in a nursing home. Healthy people use fewer expensive, publicly-funded resources, including ERs, paramedic services and long-term care facilities.

How To Advocate for Senior Nutrition Programs

As part of the advocacy campaign, we had our senior clients write messages about the importance of accessible meals on paper plates. We took photos and shared them online, with the hashtag #SaveLunch, to generate visibility as part of the campaign. Then we delivered the paper plates we collected, nearly 400 of them, to Congressman Scott Peters and Congresswoman Susan Davis and encouraged them to ask other Members of Congress to continue funding and support for congregate and home-delivered meal programs.

It is our hope that by showing our government representatives how deeply we care about feeding and nourishing our low-income seniors, and how much these seniors rely on congregate and home-delivered meal programs, we can send a strong message that will help us achieve the levels of support we need to sustain these lifesaving programs.

Add your voice to the cause: take a photo of your empty lunch plate and share it on your social media accounts with the hashtag #SaveLunch. Then contact your representatives and let them know that feeding our senior citizens matters to all Americans.

This morning at the West Senior Wellness Center seniors, advocates, elected officials and senior organizations came together to fight for Healthcare and the rights of seniors. The proposed cuts to the Healthcare system will disproportionately negatively affect the senior population. Shirley Ruiz, a senior who relies on MediCal and in home assistance said it well “Together we seniors have a voice and we say no to healthcare repeals!”

You can make a difference, be an advocate for yourselves and those in your community. Contact your elected officials to have your voice heard about the issues that matter to you. Stay tuned for a new program from Serving Seniors on the many ways you can become an advocate, workshops will be happening all over San Diego county in the coming months.